Udupi, September 9: The birthday of Virgin Mary which is celebrated as Monthi Fest/Tene Habba was celebrated by the Christian community all over the district with great devotion and pomp on Monday. This family feast is celebrated as an honour to the Goddess of environment.
After rising early in the morning, the elders along with the children visited the church and the children offered flowers to Mother Mary. The paddy grown in the fields are taken to the church by the heads of the church, which was then blessed by the Priest and was later distributed to the head’s of every family. The new blessed paddy brought from the church is then added with milk or dessert and is consumed later after the prayer.
The entire family has a complete vegetarian lunch during noon. The significance of the festive is that odd number of vegetarian food will be cooked. Most of them cook the vegetables such as Ladies Fingers, lentils, Bitter Gourd, Ash gourd, Cucumber, Tubers etc. Sweet meat was distributed to the children who bought flowers to the church.
Main churches in the district such as Milagres Church in Kalyanpur, Shokamata Church in Udupi, Holy Rosary in Kundapur, St Lawrence’s Church in Attur, Church of the Arogya Mata in Sirva , along with Basrur, Kundapur, kolalagiri, Sastana ,Kota, Hanglur and other churches celebrated the feast .
The prayer of this year’s Mary feast was held at Nithya Sahaya Mathe church, Parappadi Nirmapadavu close to Nitte in Karkala Taluk, which is one among the most backward in the vicinity of the village churches by the Bishop of the Udupi diocese. At the Bishop’s official Milagres Cathedral, respected priest Vam Stanley B Lobo led the prayer and the sacraments.
